Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations

Viewpoints: It’s Time To End Senselessly Discriminatory Ban For Gay Blood Donors

A selection of opinions on health care developments from around the state.

Los Angeles Times:
End The Outdated, Unscientific Restrictions On Gay Blood Donors
More than 30 years ago, as the AIDS epidemic exploded, the nation’s blood banks banned donations from men who had sex with other men. The logic was sound at the time. Tests of the era couldn’t adequately detect HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. As a result, thousands of people unwittingly contracted HIV from tainted blood during transfusions. Banning donations from gay men was a drastic step, but necessary to protect the nation’s blood supply. (12/1)

Fresno Bee:
AIDS Patients Still Face Challenges, Despite Successes In Treatment
Fresno County saw its first cases two years later in 1983. Now, approximately 1.2 million Americans have HIV. Another 40,000 are diagnosed each year. One of 8 infected persons does not yet know it. As for Fresno County, there are about 700 persons with HIV and 1,100 have progressed to AIDS. Transmission risks for HIV remain unchanged from those that were quickly identified in 1981. Shared needles and unprotected sex remain the leading causes. Occupational exposure remains rare, and casual contact from daily interaction in a school or a household is still perfectly safe. (Roger Mortimer, 11/29)

Sacramento Bee:
Trump Starts To Reveal Obamacare Plans
After campaigning on a platform long on platitudes and short on specifics, President-elect Donald Trump this week started to reveal what he has in store for the nation’s health care system – and many Californians aren’t going to like what they hear. Trump, who promised to replace Obamacare with “something terrific,” chose Rep. Tom Price, a tea party Republican from suburban Atlanta and one of Obamacare’s fiercest critics, as his nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. (Sal Rosselli, 12/1)

Sacramento Bee:
How Obamacare Ruling Could Shield Sanctuary Cities
While sanctuary policies vary, these cities generally limit how much local law enforcement cooperates with federal immigration officials. Leaders in Sacramento, San Francisco and other cities have vowed to fight federal attempts to deport undocumented immigrants. Ironically, the Republican assault on Obamacare may prove to be the basis that courts use to reject efforts to defund sanctuary cities. (Ong Hing, 11/28)

Los Angeles Times:
Texas Requiring Aborted Fetuses To Be Buried Is Plain Ridiculous
Anti-abortion lawmakers and state officials across the country have gone to unusual lengths since the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe vs. Wade to deter women from exercising that particular constitutional right. Lately, however, a handful of states have taken the effort to a bizarre extreme. Following the strange trail blazed by Louisiana and Indiana, Texas will soon start enforcing a new rule requiring the fetal remains from any abortion performed in a hospital or clinic in the state to be treated “with dignity” by being buried, entombed or cremated. (12/2)

San Francisco Chronicle:
All Of Us—Doctor And Patients—Need To Face Up To Healthcare Hazards
Medical mistakes are a touchy subject in the medical community. Both sides of the healthcare system fear them—patients because of their general anxiety about going to the doctor, physicians because of the looming threat of malpractice. The situation needs to be faced squarely, with candor and above all, with reliable statistics. These have varied widely over the years. While the numbers of fatalities reported annually in US hospitals has had estimates from 44,000 to 440,000, even the lower estimate is a public health catastrophe. (Deepack Chopra, Nancy Cetel, Dianielle Weiss and Joseph Weiss, 11/21)

Los Angeles Times:
The IRS Could Instantly Help 387,000 Disabled Americans. What's It Waiting For?
The Department of Education and the Social Security Administration jointly are doing yeoman’s work in identifying about 387,000 severely disabled and insolvent Americans saddled with federal student debt they can’t repay and informing them that the law allows their loans to be forgiven. But one agency still needs to act to make sure these people aren’t hit with a tax penalty when that happens: the Internal Revenue Service. (Michael Hiltzik, 11/22)

Orange County Register:
Public Pensions Facing Day Of Reckoning?
The California Supreme Court has agreed to hear a Northern California “pension spiking” case that has major implications for pension financing and reform efforts throughout the state, setting up a showdown over whether pensions may be reduced for existing government employees. After the state passed the Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act of 2013, Marin County took advantage of one of the law’s provisions to exclude certain compensation enhancements — including in-kind benefits converted to cash, like cash payments for waiving health care, and payments for “additional services rendered outside of normal working hours,” such as standby pay, administrative response pay and call-back pay — from base pay for the purpose of calculating pensions. Public employees objected and sued. (12/1)

Orange County Register:
Fibromyalgia Tricky To Diagnose, But It Can Be Treated
Despite the growing interest, little is known about the cause and probable cure of fibromyalgia. Yet, symptoms of widespread pain, headaches, sleep disorders, digestive problems, dizziness and chronic fatigue are shared among 5 million Americans, and 80 percent to 90 percent of people diagnosed are women.Traditionally, mainstream medicine has difficulty diagnosing this disorder. Since it affects the brain and central nervous system, fibromyalgia doesn’t have outward signs indicating a problem, nor does it show in ultrasound or MRI screenings. (Amy Osmond Cook, 11/30)

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